I was inspired to start reading it this morning as well. The e-text is right here:A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Am I the only one who thought this really sucked? I thought that all of the actors were pretty bad, the plot was convoluted and had a million holes in it and the 3D was meh. It’s only saving grace was that, aside from the 3d, it was visually pretty good.
The thing part that really pissed me off though was when John Carter decided to stay on Barsoom, or Mars, or whatever, and he threw the medallion away. HE THREW IT AWAY! He threw away the thing that they had just discovered could do literally anything! transportation between worlds, super weapon, making an entire island, they even discussed how it could bring back the seas or something, and he threw it away! When he got sent back to earth I just wanted to slap him for being such an idiot.
Oh, and the parts with his family on earth were just unnecessary.
If anyone can explain the teleportation/just a copy of thing I’d appreciate it. Are they saying he has a body on earth and on mars at the same time, but his soul is only in one? And if so does that mean that he’s just asleep on mars when he’s on earth, and vice versa? Or is his body teleporting?
I thought that explained why he wasn’t jumping on Thoris’ bandwagon.
Kinda sorta. See the above link to the novels and read the first part of each.
I’m trying for spoilers and comparison between the film and novelshere.
The medallion itself couldn’t do any of those things, aside from teleport between worlds. The underlying technology that made the amulet could also be used to do those things, but they already have that technology, they just haven’t had time to develop it yet. That’s why the priest guys wanted to kill Deja Thoris: she’d discovered the secret of their technology, and they wanted her eliminated so her people wouldn’t be a threat to them.
It appears that the teleport technology works by putting your body into some kind of stasis, while transporting your consciousness into some sort of construct: Carter had clearly been in that cave all along (and for much longer than he’d been on Mars, given by how completely skeletonized the Union soldier was). Not sure what happens to the construct when he teleports back, though.
Hence the open casket and ventilated tomb that opens only from the inside.
No, that was on Earth - it was to house his real body. We don’t know what happened to his body on Mars.
Due to the very brief hand waving in the novel, I presume there was no body left on Mars when he returned to Earth.
It’s underperforming quite badly at the US box office although Disney is praying that worldwide receipts will be better. (The movie cost $250 M + to make.)
Hollywood Reporter’s Nikki Finke is not a fan:
I still plan to watch the movie though, trailer looked pretty good.
I saw it yesterday and enjoyed it. I went into it with low expectations though so that might have played a part. It wasn’t amazing but it was fun. I would have liked to have seen more of Ciaran Hinds and James Purefoy, but I thought the leads were perfectly likeable. For some reason I was expecting it to be very po faced so I was surprised by the splashes of humour in it.
I didn’t think the 3D added anything to it. In fact I’m scratching my head to remember anything that actually drew my eye as being 3D. Maybe it was extremely subtle but I don’t think you’d be missing anything by seeing it in 2D.
I’m still not sure why the bald guys were messing in the affairs in Mars but maybe that would have been a long running story if it had gotten sequels.
Regarding the timeline, he seemed to be on Mars for maybe a week or so. I think when he got back to Earth 3 years had past as in his journal he mentioned that the whole thing began 13 years ago. He later said he’d been searching for the medallion for 10 years. So when he does get back to Mars he might only have been gone a few weeks. Though from a storytelling perspective it might be more interesting if he had been gone for 10 years.
I think the marketing has been terrible for this film. I don’t know anyone who plans to go see it as they have no idea what its supposed to be about or even what type of film they’re going to get. The only reason I wanted to see it was because pretty much every actor I like was cast in it.
I believe one of the bald guys-Thern, Thirn?- said they benefit from dying worlds. The big earth digging machine seemed to be strip mining Mars.
That makes sense, but throwing it away is still only marginally less stupid, because he’s still throwing away a piece of technology decades ahead of the martians while (I assume) still trying to stop the Thune. Here’s an idea: your wife is a scientist. Give it to her, study it, learn how to use it, and then use it against the Thune.
He was in WUV!
I saw it last night, and loved it.
Yes, they rewrote it. Some of it removed the ambiguity of the astral projection by replacing it with a deliberate mechanism (and what was that noise behind john Carter in the original story? it never was explained.) Making dejah Thoris an active participant rather than a passive reactor was probably necessary in any case in a world a century removed from the original story, but it was dramatically a good decision.
the Tharks were great, and the CGI was gorgeous.
They could’ve done without the first prologue. I think it just helped confuse the audience.
heck, i’d watch it again. it’s easily more involving and less confusing than the Phantom Menace, and the swashbuckling and swordfighting (even with John Carter leaping around like an anthropomorphic kangaroo) were more believable and involving than those in the 1980 Flash Gordon, JC’s genre descendant.
For my part, I thought the 3D did add to it. I was really blown away by the 3D in the river scenes (Utah strikes again! They filmed it around Moab, Arches, and Dead Horse Point, according to the closing credits, but I’d recognize that Desert Varnish anywhere).
heck, I’d see a sequel.
Undoubtably true. In the original novels, the female characters exist mainly as living MacGuffins; their primary role is to be kidnapped by villains to give the heroes an excuse to come charging to the rescue. Not something that would play well in this modern world.
Saw this today, went in with zero expectations, having never read any of the stories.
Oh, it was great, campy fun. I loved all the weird creatures. Some great action sequences. My friends and I have tried to describe the viewing experience to those who haven’t seen it, but it defies description in so many ways.
I told my husband. ‘‘It’s not a bad movie, I can’t even say it’s awesomely bad. But it is ridiculous. Thoroughly ridiculous.’’
The basic plot is easy enough to follow, but many people in the audience had no idea what was going on. Honestly, the film keeps you in a state of perpetual confusion. But it doesn’t matter! It’s Mars! With John Carter! Jumping around a lot!
I see that the news has this film performing badly, which is a serious letdown. This is prime pulp (almost pre-pulp*) material. Why the hell wasn’t this a Christmas or a Summer release?
*yes, I know it appeared in a magazine first. But it certainly predated the “golden era” of SF pulp magazines.
Disney tried to tie it in with the fact that Mars is closer right now than usual, along with the 100th anniversary of the story (it was still being serialized a century ago).
Hard to believe that this is the real reason. The film is clearly summer-light fare. Releasing it in March seems kinda boneheaded.
It’s obvious that Disney had no idea what to do with the movie, and just wanted to dump it. I suspect that their cluelessness wasn’t limited to the film’s release date and marketing - the clunky prologue and several other scenes reeked of studio tampering.
I saw it yesterday, also with no expectations and/or knowledge of the books, and I was pleasantly surprised. I thought it was quite good. I didn’t find the story to be confusing in the least, and nothing seemed patently ridiculous to me. And I thought that the actress who played Dejah was gorgeous and very feminine. I wasn’t expecting it to be so funny, and I actually found the big fight/family scene to be touching.
(I’m a 40-year-old female, FWIW.)